http://www.singingtotheplants.com/2009/08/spirit-stuff/ A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:09:36 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 http://www.singingtotheplants.com/2009/08/spirit-stuff/comment-page-1/#comment-506 Fred Tue, 11 Aug 2009 05:26:42 +0000 http://www.singingtotheplants.com/?p=3020#comment-506 Thinking about your last question - Edith Turner's vision left her in a highly spiritualized state, but a world apart, as you suggest. The power of both the shaman and the ritual allowed her to drop her self-identity long enough to peep into their world and breathe their psychic breath. Her misinterpertation was surely due to her unfamiliarity with the Ndembu's own somatic culture, but at least she gained an opportunity to explore it within their somatic and emotional realms. It's axiomatic to say that most fieldworkers don't get that far. In fact, I like to think that many of them do, but end up suppressing their experience, surely in publications and maybe even to themselves, in the name of of the "scientific" status of their professions. This is unfortunate, because one can in fact be responsible to one's own experience and to scientific standards. If it were not for Edith's experience - and misunderstanding - we would have never understood even this much of what the shaman did. Good work, Steve! Thinking about your last question – Edith Turner’s vision left her in a highly spiritualized state, but a world apart, as you suggest. The power of both the shaman and the ritual allowed her to drop her self-identity long enough to peep into their world and breathe their psychic breath. Her misinterpertation was surely due to her unfamiliarity with the Ndembu’s own somatic culture, but at least she gained an opportunity to explore it within their somatic and emotional realms. It’s axiomatic to say that most fieldworkers don’t get that far. In fact, I like to think that many of them do, but end up suppressing their experience, surely in publications and maybe even to themselves, in the name of of the “scientific” status of their professions. This is unfortunate, because one can in fact be responsible to one’s own experience and to scientific standards. If it were not for Edith’s experience – and misunderstanding – we would have never understood even this much of what the shaman did. Good work, Steve!

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